BLACK HISTORY MONTH: Local educator left indelible mark on community, history

Published 7:00 am Friday, February 16, 2024

Sallie Ellis Davis made an indelible mark on local education that is still impactful today, and a visit to the historical landmark that was once her home provides a unique view of her significant legacy.

“Sallie Ellis Davis was really one of the lions of education for the African American community during the period of segregation,” said Matt Davis, director of historic museums at Georgia College & State University. 

A native of Baldwin County, Davis attended Atlanta University, obtaining her Normal School degree in 1899. She soon returned home to Baldwin County where she served as both a teacher and administrator at Eddy High School. Her teaching efforts, though, transcended the traditional classroom. 

“In her lifetime, from her house she would use the space to house students who may have lived too far out in the country to come to school on a regular basis, so she provided lodging and bunking for those students,” Davis said. 

Davis said she also served as a bridge between the African American and white communities. 

“Her mother was African American. Her father was Caucasian. And so, Mrs. Davis really was a giant of that time period within the African American community and really an anchor of the Eddy School neighborhood where her house still stands today.”

In April 2012, a fundraising effort through the Georgia College & State University Foundation helped to restore her former home, and the Sallie Ellis Davis House was reopened to the public. 

On a tour of the home, visitors are given an overview of Davis’ life and impact on education in the community as well as a guided walk through the four-room house. 

“We’ve done a complete restoration of the parlor space of the house where we tell a lot of the stories of Mrs. Davis — her impact on the community helping students and even hosting listening parties for Joe Lewis’s boxing matches,” Davis said. 

While an original portrait of her hangs in the Baldwin County Board of Education office, guests to her home will see a copy of the portrait along with many artifacts original to the house in her parlor space.

What was once her master bedroom is now a recreation of her classroom at the Eddy School, and in that particular space, tourists learn how education was delivered to African Americans of that time period and what it was like to be a student within a segregated school.

The home also includes standing exhibit panels, an interactive classroom, rotating galleries and much more. 

“It’s well worth the visit,” Davis said.

Though her years in education were essentially from 1900 to 1950, her story remains very much impactful today. Sallie Davis Elementary School, which many from the community remember as one of the first elementary schools after desegregation, was named for her. She was also named a Georgia Woman of Achievement, and her house’s restoration efforts have been recognized with awards from both the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation and the Georgia Historical Society.

“I think the impactful nature of Mrs. Davis’s life and legacy and what she was able to do for the greater community as a whole is certainly worth remembering, and it is today,” Davis said.

The Sallie Ellis Davis House is open for tours every Wednesday and Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. In addition, the home is open on the first and third weekends of the month on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sundays from 2 to 4 p.m. with tours beginning on the hour and also by appointment. 

“It’s a local story,” Davis said, “but it’s a story that is mirrored in many communities across the South during that period of time, and I think if individuals can learn a little more about Mrs. Davis and what life was like during that period in which segregation existed and take with them some truths about what that period really meant and what it looked like through the life of this woman, then I think we’ve done our job at the tour.”